


October falls

by rayfelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 02:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s October and Harry thinks it might have been better if he had died on the roots of the Forbidden Forest after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	October falls

It’s October and the sky is crying, falling on top of the rubble and the bloodstains.

It’s October and Harry doesn’t know how to live anymore.

It’s October and it’s been months since Voldemort fell, but the battles are not over.

It’s October and Harry thinks it might have been better if he had died on the roots of the Forbidden Forest after all.

…

He sits curled up on the windowsill in Sirius’ old room, wrapped in blankets and clothes than hang from his frame. Somewhere along the way he gave up on everything. Maybe he had given up a long time ago but it just took a while to understand.

Grimmauld house is dusty and forgotten, a patch of time that stays the same while the world moves on. Harry had shut it off from everyone the moment he moved in and hasn’t let the wards lift ever since. He regrets too much. He feels too much.

He wished to be the one of the dead too much.

…

The tea tastes bland on his tongue, but Harry drinks it anyway. There was nothing else to do while he read the letters from Hermione and Ginny, both spilling sonnets about how Ron was an Auror now and how Fred and George were starting up their shop again.

Last of the Death Eaters died yesterday evening, alone and wrung out like a dirty dishrag. So much for the army of the strongest Dark Wizard. Not ever, of course, but in the last twenty years.

It’s November and Harry feels like a ghost trapped in this world, rather than a human being.

It’s November and there are still funerals being held in honor of the fallen.

…

He steps out of Grimmauld house one early December morning. The world is coated in white and frost, cold enough to numb everything that he was and wasn’t. With hair long enough to hide his face Harry doesn’t hesitate to slip between those who still lived on.

In a fit of madness and despair he visits Tonks and Teddy, pays his respects for the last of the Marauders to die. Lupin’s tombstone is black and reminds people to live on. Harry cries for the first time in so long and promises his godson the world on a silver platter.

…

Still, his house stays warded and he doesn’t let anyone visit. He is the one who goes to them. There are too many graves he needs to apologize to.

It’s January and Harry makes his own scars.

It’s January and the snow falls in heavy flakes from the grey sky as Harry tries to grab desperately onto something to live for.

The world still looks for him. Still sings praises to what he had done. But he feels even more like a mistake with each passing day.

It’s January and Harry can’t use magic.

…

It’s February and Harry has a panic attack.

He stares at the wall in front of him with wide eyes and barely chokes down batches of air. He feels pain in his hand and knows that there is glass cutting into his skin and tearing it apart. He hears his own heartbeat too clearly.

For a long time he sits still and just tries to breathe. Magic and wound be damned. This house held him together, even now, with the silent acceptance that drips from the ceiling and the walls.

…

The world melts away in warm sunrays of spring and Harry stays the same frigid winter cold. He watches his godson grow and friends move on from the horrors of Dark magic. He wishes he could do the same.

It’s March and Harry finally tries to lick his wounds and pretend they heal.

He breathes in the spring and feels it turn into broken ice in his lungs. It burns. He feels.

…

It’s April and Cho finally decides to quietly close her eyes and slip away from this world.

It hurts less than Harry thought it would, since now she can be happy with Cedric in the world on the other side of the Veil. Maybe if he did the same he could let go of the monsters living in the shadows and under his bed.

Lavender hugs him tightly and she smells like fresh cookies when Harry shows up for the funeral. She reminds him of summer days and no worries. In a dimension that never was.

…

Hogwarts looks like one of those imaginary places printed on muggle postcards when he sees it again. Laughter and peace tangles around his ankles and drowns him seconds. It feels wrong to be here.

It’s May and life moves on.

Harry sees so many faces, so many bright eyes judging him for casting the Avada Kedavra for a good reason. Fire burns along his eyes and he hides in the empty stone corridors, among the memories of better days and friends fallen.

…

June comes with new scars atop the old ones and still no magic in his veins. He doesn’t know how to walk around this problem, how to avoid it. But maybe Hermione knows. She always knows.

She doesn’t. But she makes him eat instead, telling news about the marriage that will happen on a warm summer day.

Harry feels left behind and forgotten. But that is what he wanted. He wanted the world to move on without him, to forget him, to let him rest. And his wishes have now come true and there is nothing to hope for now.

…

He sees Luna and begs her forgiveness for the scars littered along her pale face. Harry smiles, free, when she slides fingers along his cheek and telsl him it was worth it. Everything was worth it in the end.

Luna’s hands are warm when she takes Harry’s fingers and kisses the tips. His magic flickers briefly and makes his heart beat faster. Alive, again. After so long it seemed almost a foreign feeling.

It’s July and Luna confesses her love and hope towards the new world.

…

It’s August and the wedding is bright.

Music makes his head hurt and all the people around him make him choke, but Harry fights though all of this for the sake of Ron and Hermione. They are his friends. They deserve to be happy and not worry about him.

Luna slides up to him and holds his hand, awakens the magic that still doesn’t listen. It’s quiet, then. Calm before the storm. Almost but not quite. He asks Luna about the future, does it still seem like something to live for.

She kisses him on the cheek and doesn’t say anything at all.

…

He wakes up from a nightmare mid-scream. His magic runs wild and fills the entire room with specks of light and fire. The house takes in the magic and recognizes it, calms it and returns it to Harry afterwards. His throat is scratched red and sore, but he cannot stop screaming.

It’s September and Harry still feels empty.

It’s September and he still thinks that dying would be better.

It’s September and he wishes there was someone next to him that could understand.

…

It’s October and it no longer feels like a war.

It’s October and his friends have started a new and better life.

It’s October and Harry finally decides it’s been enough.

It’s October and finally the world has calmed down.

It’s October and Harry falls.


End file.
